Portuguese Communist Party

The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) is a communist political party in Portugal that was founded on 6 March 1921. The PCP was formed from the ranks of anarcho-syndicalist and revolutionary syndicalist groups, the most active factions in the Portuguese labor movement. The party was made illegal after a coup in the late 1920s, and it played a major role in the opposition to the dictatorial regime of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar. During the five-decades-long dictatorship, the PCP was constantly suppressed by the provincial police, which forced its members to live in clandestine status under the threat of arrest, torture, and murder. After the 1974 Carnation Revolution, the party was legalized, and it became a major political force in the newly democratic state, mainly among the working class. Despite being less influential since the fall of the Eastern Bloc and the end of the Cold War, it still enjoyed widespread popularity in the rural areas of the Alentejo and Ribatejo and in the heavily industrialized areas around Lisbon and Setubal.